Evelyn found Owen waiting for her. As soon as she came into the room he
said, "Well, have you seen your father?"
She was not expecting him, and it was disagreeable to admit that she had
not been to Dulwich. So she said that she had thought to find her father
at St. Joseph's.
"But how did you know he was not at home if you did not go to Dulwich?"
"My gracious, Owen, how you do question me! Now, perhaps you would like
to know which of the priests told me."
She walked to the window and stood with her left hand in the pocket of
her jacket, and he feared that the irritation he had involuntarily
caused her would interfere with his projects for the afternoon. There
passed in his eyes that look of absorption in an object which marks the
end of a long love affair--a look charged with remembrance, and wistful
as an autumn day.
The earth has grown weary of the sun and turns herself into the shadow,
eager for rest. The sun has been too ardent a lover. But the gaze of the
sun upon the receding earth is fonder than his look when she raised
herself to his bright face. So in Owen's autumn-haunted eyes there was
dread of the chances which he knew were accumulating against
him--enemies, he divined, were gathering in the background; and how he
might guard her, keep her for himself, became a daily inquisition.
Nothing had happened to lead him to think that his possession was
endangered, his fear proceeded from an instinct, which he could not
subdue, that she was gliding from him; he wrestled with the intangible,
and, striving to subordinate instinct to reason, he often refrained from
kissing her; he imitated the indifference which in other times he could
not dissimulate when the women who had really loved him besought him
with tears. But there was no long gain-saying of the delight of telling
her that he loved her, and when his aching heart forced him to question
her regarding the truth of her feelings towards him, she merely told him
that she loved him as much as ever, and the answer, instead of being a
relief, was additional fuel upon the torturing flame of his uncertainty.
Ever since their rupture and reconciliation in Florence, their relations
had been so uncertain that Owen often wondered if he were her lover.
Whether the reason for these periods of restraint was virtue or
indifference he could never be quite sure. He believed that she always
retained her conscience, but he could not forget that her love had once
been sufficient compensation for what she suffered from it. "The stage
has not altered her," he thought, "time has but nourished her
idiosyncrasies." He had been hoping for one of her sudden and violent
returnings to her former self, but such thing would not happen to-day,
and hardly knowing what reply to make, he asked if she were free to come
to look at some furniture. She mentioned several engagements, adding
that he had made her too many presents already.
She spoke of the rehearsal at considerable length, omitting, somehow, to
speak of Ulick, and after lunch she seemed restless and proposed to go
out at once.
As they drove off to see the Sheraton sideboard, he asked her if she had
seen Ulick Dean. To her great annoyance she said she had not, and this
falsehood spoilt her afternoon for her. She could not discover why she
had told this lie. The memory rankled in her and continued to take her
unaware. She was tempted to confess the truth to Owen; the very words
she thought she should use rose up in her mind several times. "I told
you a lie. I don't know why I did, for there was absolutely no reason
why I should have said that I had not seen Ulick Dean." On Saturday the
annoyance which this lie had caused in her was as keen as ever: and it
was not until she had got into her carriage and was driving to Dulwich
that her consciousness of it died in the importance of her interview
with her father.
In comparing her present attitude of mind with that of last Thursday,
she was glad to notice that to-day she could not think that her father
would not forgive her. Her talk on the subject with Ulick had reassured
her. He would not have been so insistent if he had not been sure that
her father would forgive her in the end. But there would be
recriminations, and at the very thought of them she felt her courage
sink, and she asked herself why he should make her miserable if he was
going to forgive her in the end. Her plans were to talk to him about his
choir, and, if that did not succeed, to throw herself on her knees. She
remembered how she had thrown herself on her knees on the morning of the
afternoon she had gone away. And since then she had thrown herself at
his feet many times--every time she sang in the "Valkyrie." The scene in
which Wotan confides all his troubles and forebodings to Brunnhilde had
never been different from the long talks she and her father used to drop
into in the dim evenings in Dulwich. She had cheered him when he came
home depressed after a talk with the impossible Father Gordon, as she
had since cheered Wotan in his deep brooding over the doom of the gods
predicted by Wala, when the dusky foe of love should beget a son in
hate. Wotan had always been her father; Palestrina, Walhalla, and the
stupid Jesuits, what were they? She had often tried to work out the
allegory. It never came out quite right, but she always felt sure in
setting down Father Gordon as Alberich. The scene in the third act, when
she throws herself at Wotan's feet and begs his forgiveness (the music
and the words together surged upon her brain), was the scene that now
awaited her. She had at last come to this long-anticipated scene; and
the fictitious scene she had acted as she was now going to act the real
scene. True that Wotan forgave Brunnhilde after putting her to sleep on
the fire-surrounded rock, where she should remain till a pure hero
should come to release her. A nervous smile curled her lip for a moment;
she trembled in her very entrails, and as they passed down the long,
mean streets of Camberwell her thoughts frittered out in all sorts of
trivial observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who
called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever
deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man
she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some
sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she
was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill,
whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly
all the way to Dulwich.
But when they entered the familiar village street she was surprised at
her dislike of it; even the chestnut trees, beautiful with white bloom,
were distasteful to her, and life seemed contemptible beneath them. In
Dulwich there was no surprise--life there was a sheeted phantom, it
evoked a hundred dead Evelyns, and she felt she would rather live in any
ghostly graveyard than in Dulwich. Her very knowledge of the place was
an irritation to her, and she was pleased when she saw a house which had
been built since she had been away. But every one of the fields she knew
well, and the sight of every tree recalled a dead day, a dead event.
That road to the right led to the picture gallery, and at the cross road
she had been nearly run over by a waggon while trundling a hoop. But
eyesight hardly helped her in Dulwich; she had only to think, to see it.
The slates of a certain house told her that another minute would bring
her to her father's door, and before the carriage turned the corner she
foresaw the patch of black garden. But if her father were at home he
might refuse to see her, and she was not certain if she should force her
way past the servant or return home quietly. The entire dialogue of the
scene between her and Margaret passed through her mind, and the very
intonation of their voices. But it was not Margaret who opened the door
to her.
"This way, miss, please."
"No, I'll wait in the music-room."
"Mr. Innes won't have no one wait there in his absence. Will you come
into the parlour?"
"No, I think I'll wait in the music-room. I'm Miss Innes; Mr. Innes is
my father."
"What, miss, are you the great singer?"
"I suppose I am."
"Do you know, miss, something told me that you was. The moment I saw the
carriage, I said, "Here she is; this is her for certain." Will you come
this way, miss? I'll run and get the key."
"And who was it," Evelyn said, "that told you I was a singer?"
"Lor'! miss, didn't half Dulwich go to hear you sing at the opera?"
"Did you?"
"No, I didn't go, Miss, but I heard Mr. Dean and your father talking of
you. I've read about you in the papers; only this morning there was a
long piece."
"If father talks of me he'll forgive me," thought Evelyn. The girl's
wonderment made her smile, and she said--
"But you've not told me your name."
"My name is Agnes, miss."
"Have you been long with my father? When I left, Margaret--"
"Ah! she's dead, miss. I came to your father the day after the funeral."
Evelyn walked up the room, overcome by the eternal absence of something
which had hitherto been part of her life. For Margaret took her back to
the time her mother was alive; farther back still--to the very beginning
of her life. She had always reckoned on Margaret.... So Margaret was
dead. Margaret would never know of this meeting. Margaret might have
helped her. Poor Margaret! At that moment she caught sight of her
mother's eyes. They seemed to watch her; she seemed to know all about
Owen, and afraid of the haunting, reproving look, Evelyn studied the
long oval face and the small brown eyes so unlike hers. One thing only
she had inherited from her mother--her voice. She had certainly not
inherited her conduct from her mother; her mother was one of the few
great artistes against whom nothing could be said. Her mother was a good
woman.... What did she think of her daughter? And seeing her cold,
narrow face, she feared her mother would regard her conduct even more
severely than her father.... "But if she had lived I should have had no
occasion to go away with Owen." She wondered. At the bottom of her heart
she knew that Owen was as much as anything else a necessity in her
life.... She moved about the room and wished the hands of the clock
could be advanced a couple of hours, for then the terrible scene with
her father would be over. If he could only forgive her at once, and not
make her miserable with reproaches, they could have such a pleasant
evening.
In this room her past life was blown about her like spray about a rock.
She remembered the days when she went to London with her father to give
lessons; the miserable winter when she lost her pupils.... How she had
waited in this room for her father to come back to dinner; the faintness
of those hungry hours; worse still, that yearning for love. She must
have died if she had not gone away. If it had to happen all over again
she must act as she had acted. How well she remembered the moment when
she felt that her life in Dulwich had become impossible. She was coming
from the village where she had been paying some bills, and looking up
she had suddenly seen the angle of a house and a bare tree, and she
could still hear the voice which had spoken out of her very soul. "Shall
I never get away from this place?" it had cried. "Shall I go on doing
these daily tasks for ever?" The strange, vehement agony of the voice
had frightened her.... At that moment her eyes were attracted by a sort
of harpsichord. "One of father's experiments," she said, running her
fingers over the keys. "A sort of cross between a harpsichord and a
virginal; up here the intonation is that of a virginal."
"I forgot to ask you miss"--Evelyn turned from the window, startled; it
was Agnes who had come back--"if you was going to stop for dinner, for
there's very little in the house, only a bit of cold beef. I should be
ashamed to put it on the table, miss; I'm sure you couldn't eat it.
Master don't think what he eats; he's always thinking of his music. I
hope you aren't like that, miss?"
"So he doesn't eat much. How is my father looking, Agnes?"
"Middling, miss. He varies about a good bit; he's gone rather thin
lately."
"Is he lonely, do you think ... in the evenings?"
"No, miss; I don't hear him say nothing about being lonely. For the last
couple of years he never did more than come home to sleep and his meals,
and he'd spend the evenings copying out the music."
"And off again early in the morning?"
"That's it, miss, with his music tied up in a brown paper parcel.
Sometimes Mr. Dean comes and helps him to write the music."
"Ah!... but I'm sorry he doesn't eat better."
"He eats better when Mr. Dean's here. They has a nice little dinner
together. Now he's taken up with that 'ere instrument, the harpy chord,
they's making. He's comin' home to-night to finish it; he says he can't
get it finished nohow--that they's always something more to do to it."
"I wonder if we could get a nice dinner for him this evening?"
"Well, miss, you see there's no shops to speak of about here. You know
that as well as I do."
"I wonder what your cooking is like?"
"I don't know, miss; p'r'aps it wouldn't suit you, but I've been always
praised for my cooking."
"I could send for some things; my coachman could fetch them from town."
"Then there's to-morrow to be thought about if you're stopping here. I
tell you we don't keep much in the house."
"Is my father coming home to dinner?"
"I can't say for certain, miss, only that he said 'e'd be 'ome early to
finish the harpy chord. 'E might have 'is dinner out and come 'ome
directly after, but I shouldn't think that was likely."
"You can cook a chicken, Agnes?"
"Lor'! yes, miss."
"And a sole?"
"Yes, miss; but in ordering, miss, you must think of to-morrow. You
won't like to have a nice dinner to-night and a bit of hashed mutton
to-morrow."
"I'll order sufficient. You've got no wine, I suppose?"
"No, we've no wine, miss, only draught beer."
"I'll tell my coachman to go and fetch the things at once."
When she returned to the music-room, Agnes asked her if she was going to
stop the night.
"Because I should have to get your rooms ready, miss."
"That I can't tell, Agnes.... I don't think so.... You won't tell my
father I'm here when you let him in?... I want it to be a surprise."
"I won't say nothing, miss. I'll leave him to find it out."
Evelyn felt that the girl must have guessed her story, must have
perceived in her the repentant daughter--the erring daughter returned
home. Everything pointed to that fact. Well, it couldn't be helped if
she had.
"If my father will only forgive me; if that first dreadful scene were
only over, we could have an enchanting evening together."
She was too nervous to seek out a volume of Bach and let her fingers run
over the keys; she played anything that came into her head, sometimes
she stopped to listen. At last there came a knock, and her heart told
her it was his. In another moment he would be in the room. But seeing
her he stopped, and, without a word, he went to a table and began
untying a parcel of music.
"Father, I've come to see you.... You don't answer. Father, are you not
going to speak to me? I've been longing to see you, and now--"
"If you had wanted to see me, you'd have come a month ago."
"I was not in London a month ago."
"Well, three weeks ago."
"I ought to have done so, but I had no courage. I could only see you
looking at me as you are looking now. Forgive me, father.... I'm your
only daughter; she's full of failings, but she has never ceased to love
you."
He sat at the table fumbling with the string that had tied the parcel he
had brought in, and she stood looking at him, unable to speak. She
seemed to have said all there was to say, and wished she could throw
herself at his feet; but she could not, something held her back. She
prayed for tears, but her eyes remained dry; her mouth was dry, and a
flame seemed to burn behind her eyes. She could only think that this
might be the last time she would see him. The silence seemed a great
while. She repeated her words, "I had not the courage to come before."
At the sound of her voice she remembered that she must speak to him at
once of his choir, and so take their thoughts from painful reminiscence.
"I went to St. Joseph's on Thursday, but you weren't there. You gave
Vittoria's mass last Sunday. I started to go, but I had to turn back."
She had not gone to hear her father's choir, because she could not
resist Lady Ascott's invitation, and no more than the invitation could
she resist the lie; she had striven against it, but in spite of herself
it had forced itself through her lips, and now her father seemed to have
some inkling of the truth, for he said--
"If you had cared to hear my choir you'd have gone. You needn't have
seen me, whereas I was obliged--"
Evelyn guessed that he had been to the opera. "How good of him to have
gone to hear me," she thought. She hated herself for having accepted
Lady Ascott's invitation, and the desire to ask him what he thought of
her voice seemed to her an intolerable selfishness.
"What were you going to say, father?"
"Nothing.... I'm glad you didn't come."
"Wasn't it well sung?" and she was seized with nervousness, and instead
of speaking to him about his basses as she had intended, she asked him
about the trebles.
"They are the worst part of the choir. That contrapuntal music can only
be sung by those who can sing at sight. The piano has destroyed the
modern ear. I daresay it has spoilt your ear."
"My ear is all right, I think."
"I hope it is better than your heart."
Evelyn's face grew quite still, as if it were frozen, and seeing the
pain he had caused her he was moved to take her in his arms and forgive
her straight away. He might have done so, but she turned, and passing
her hand across her eyes she went to the harpsichord. She played one of
the little Elizabethan songs, "John, come kiss me now." Then an old
French song tempted her voice by its very appropriateness to the
situation--"_Que vous me coûtez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs_."
But there was a knot in her throat, she could not sing, she could hardly
speak. She endeavoured to lead her father into conversation, hoping he
might forget her conduct until it was too late for him to withdraw into
resentment. She could see that the instrument she was playing on he had
made himself. In some special intention it was filled with levers and
stops, the use of which was not quite apparent to her; and she could see
by the expression on his face that he was annoyed by her want of
knowledge of the technicalities of the instrument.
So she purposely exaggerated her ignorance.
He fell into the trap and going to her he said, "You are not making use
of the levers."
"Oh, am I not?" she said innocently. "What is this instrument--a
virginal or a harpsichord?"
"It is a harpsichord, but the intonation is that of a virginal. I made
it this winter. The volume of sound from the old harpsichord is not
sufficient in a large theatre, that is why the harpsichord music in 'Don
Juan' has to be played on the fiddles."
He stopped speaking and she pressed him in vain to explain the
instrument. She went on playing.
"The levers," he said at last, "are above your knees. Raise your knees."
She pretended not to understand.
"Let me show you." He seated himself at the instrument. "You see the
volume of sound I obtain, and all the while I do not alter the treble."
"Yes, yes, and the sonority of the instrument is double that of the old
harpsichord. It would be heard all over Covent Garden."
She could see that the remark pleased him. "I'll sing 'Zerline' if
you'll play it."
"You couldn't sing 'Zerline,' it isn't in your voice."
"You don't know what my voice is like."
"Evelyn, I wonder how you can expect me to forgive you; I wonder how I
can speak to you. Have you forgotten how you went away leaving me to
bear the shame, the disgrace?"
"I have come to beg forgiveness, not to excuse myself. But I wrote to
you from Paris that I was going to live with Lady Duckle, and that you
were to say that I had gone abroad to study singing."
"I'm astonished, Evelyn, that you can speak so lightly."
"I do not think lightly of my conduct, if you knew the miserable days it
has cost me. Reproach me as you will about my neglect toward you, but as
far as the world is concerned there has been no disgrace."
"You would have gone all the same; you only thought of yourself.
Brought up as you have been, a Catholic--"
"My sins, father, lie between God and myself. What I come for is to beg
forgiveness for the wrong I did you."
He did not answer, but he seemed to acquiesce, and it was a relief to
her to feel that it was not the moral question that divided them;
convention had forced him to lay some stress upon it, but clearly what
rankled in his heart, and prevented him from taking her in his arms, was
a jealous, purely human feud. This she felt she could throw herself
against and overpower.
"Father, you must forgive me, we are all in all to each other; nothing
can change that. Ever since mother's death--you remember when the nurse
told us all was over--ever since I've felt that we were in some strange
way dependent on each other. Our love for each other is the one
unalterable thing. My music you taught me; the first songs I sang were
at your concerts, and now that we have both succeeded--you with
Palestrina, and I with Wagner--we must needs be aliens. Father, can't
you see that that can never be? if you don't you do not love me as I do
you. You're still thinking that I left you. Of course, it was very
wrong, but has that changed anything? Father, tell me, tell me, unless
you want to kill me, that you do not believe that I love you less."
The wonder of the scene she was acting--she never admitted she acted;
she lived through scenes, whether fictitious or real--quickened in her;
it was the long-expected scene, the scene in the third act of the
"Valkyrie" which she had always played while divining the true scene
which she would be called upon to play one day. It seemed to her that
she stood on the verge of all her future--the mystery of the abyss
gathered behind her eyes; she threw herself at her father's feet, and
the celebrated phrase, so plaintive, so full of intercession, broke from
her lips, "Was the rebel act so full of shame that her rebellion is so
shamefully scourged? Was my offence so deep in disgrace that thou dost
plan so deep a disgrace for me? Was this my crime so dark with dishonour
that it henceforth robs me of all honour? Oh tell me, father; look in
mine eyes." She heard the swelling harmony, every chord, the note that
gave her the note she was to sing. She was carried down like a drowning
one into a dim world of sub-conscious being; and in this half life all
that was most true in her seemed to rise like a star and shine forth,
while all that was circumstantial and ephemeral seemed to fall away. She
was conscious of the purification of self; she seemed to see herself
white and bowed and penitent. She experienced a great happiness in
becoming humble and simple again.... But she did not know if the
transformation which was taking place in her was an abiding or a passing
thing. She knew she was expressing all that was most deep in her nature,
and yet she had acted all that she now believed to be reality on the
stage many times. It seemed as true then as it did now--more true; for
she was less self-conscious in the fictitious than in the real scene.
She knelt at her father's or at Wotan's feet--she could not distinguish;
all limitations had been razed. She was _the_ daughter at _the_ father's
feet. She knelt like the Magdalen. The position had always been natural
to her, and habit had made it inveterate; there she bemoaned the
difficulties of life, the passion which had cast her down and which
seemed to forbid her an ideal. She caught her father's hand and pressed
it against her cheek. She knew she was doing these things, yet she could
not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed
was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised
her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was
compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret
of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him
to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her
expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. And it was not
until he asked her why she was singing Wagner that she raised her face.
That he should not know, jarred and spoilt the harmony of the scene as
she had conceived it, and it was not till he repeated his question that
she told him.
"Because I've never sung it without thinking of you, father. That is why
I sang it so well. I knew it all before. It tore at my heart strings. I
knew that one day it would come to this."
"So every time before was but a rehearsal."
She rose to her feet.
"Why are you so cruel? It is you who are acting, not I. I mean what I
say--you don't. Why make me miserable? You know that you must forgive
me. You can't put me out of doors, so what is the use in arguing about
my faults? I am like that ... you must take me as I am, and perhaps you
would not have cared for me half as much if I had been different."
"Evelyn, how can you speak like that? You shock me very much."
She regretted her indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral
question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had
sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had
been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was
quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger
against her. She was shrined in his heart, the dream of his whole life.
He could feel anger against himself, but not against her. She was right.
He must forgive her, for how could he live without her? Into what
dissimulation he had been foolishly ensnared! In these convictions which
broke like rockets in his heart and brain, spreading a strange
illumination in much darkness, he saw her beauty and sex idealised, and
in the vision were the eyes and pallor of the dead wife, and all the
yearning and aspiration of his own life seemed reflected back in this
fair, oval face, lit with luminous, eager eyes, and in the tangle of
gold hair fallen about her ears, and thrown back hastily with long
fingers; and the wonder of her sex in the world seemed to shed a light
on distant horizons, and he understood the strangeness of the common
event of father and daughter standing face to face, divided, or
seemingly divided, by the mystery of the passion of which all things are
made. His own sins were remembered. They fell like soft fire breaking in
a dark sky, and his last sensation in the whirl of complex, diffused and
passing sensations was the thrill of terror at the little while
remaining to him wherein he might love her. A few years at most! His
eyes told her what was happening in his heart, and with that beautiful
movement of rapture so natural to her, she threw herself into his arms.
"I knew, father, dear, that you'd forgive me in the end. It was
impossible to think of two like us living and dying in alienation. I
should have killed myself, and you, dear, you would have died of grief.
But I dreaded this first meeting. I had thought of it too much, and, as
I told you, I had acted it so often."
"Have I been so severe with you, Evelyn, that you should dread me?"
"No, darling, but, of course, I've behaved--there's no use talking about
it any more. But you could never have been really in doubt that a lover
could ever change my love for you. Owen--I mustn't speak about him, only
I wish you to understand that I've never ceased to think of you. I've
never been really happy, and I'm sure you've been miserable about me
often enough; but now we may be happy. 'Winter storms wane in the
winsome May.' You know the _Lied_ in the first act of the 'Valkyrie'?
And now that we're friends, I suppose you'll come and hear me. Tell me
about your choir." She paused a moment, and then said, "My first thought
was for you on landing in England. There was a train waiting at
Victoria, but we'd had a bad crossing, and I felt so ill that I couldn't
go. Next day I was nervous. I had not the courage, and he proposed that
I should wait till I had sung Margaret. So much depended on the success
of my first appearance. He was afraid that if I had had a scene with you
I might break down."
"Wotan, you say, forgives Brunnhilde, but doesn't he put her to sleep on
a fire-surrounded rock?"
"He puts her to sleep on the rock, but it is she who asks for flames to
protect her from the unworthy. Wotan grants her request, and Brunnhilde
throws herself enraptured into his arms. 'Let the coward shun
Brunnhilde's rock--for but one shall win--the bride who is freer than I,
the god!'"
"Oh, that's it, is it? Then with what flames shall I surround you?"
"I don't know, I've often wondered; the flame of a promise--a promise
never to leave you again, father. I can promise no more."
"I want no other promise."
The eyes of the portrait were fixed on them, and they wondered what
would be the words of the dead woman if she could speak.
Agnes announced that the coachman had returned.
"Father, I've lots of things to see to. I'm going to stop to dinner if
you'll let me."
"I'm afraid, Evelyn--Agnes--"
"You need not trouble about the dinner--Agnes and I will see to that. We
have made all necessary arrangements."
"Is that your carriage?... You've got a fine pair of horses. Well, one
can't be Evelyn Innes for nothing. But if you're stopping to dinner,
you'd better stop the night. I'm giving the 'Missa Brevis' to-morrow.
I'm giving it in honour of Monsignor Mostyn. It was he who helped me to
overcome Father Gordon."
"You shall tell me all about Monsignor after dinner."
He walked about the room, unwittingly singing the _Lied_, "Winter storms
wane in the winsome May," and he stopped before the harpsichord,
thinking he saw her still there. And his thoughts sailed on, vagrant as
clouds in a Spring breeze. She had come back, his most wonderful
daughter had come back.
He turned from his wife's portrait, fearing the thought that her joy on
their daughter's return might be sparer than his. But unpleasant
thoughts fell from him, and happiness sang in his brain like
spring-awakened water-courses, and the scent in his nostrils was of
young leaves and flowers, and his very flesh was happy as the warm,
loosening earth in spring. "'Winter storms,'" he sang, "'wane in the
winsome May; with tender radiance sparkles the spring.' I must hear her
sing that; I must hear her intercede at Wotan's feet!" His eyes filled
with happy tears, and he put questions aside. She was coming to-morrow
to hear his choir. And what would she think of it? A shadow passed
across his face. If he had known she was coming, he'd have taken more
trouble with those altos; he'd have kept them another hour.... Then,
taken with a sudden craving to see her, he went to the door and called
to her.
"Evelyn."
"Yes, father."
"You are stopping to-night?"
"Yes, but I can't stop to speak with you now--I'm busy with Agnes."
She was deep in discussion with Agnes regarding the sole. Agnes thought
she knew how to prepare it with bread crumbs, but both were equally
uncertain how the melted butter was to be made. There was no
cookery-book in the house, and it seemed as if the fish would have to be
eaten with plain butter until it occurred to Agnes that she might borrow
a cookery-book next door. It seemed to Evelyn that she had never seen a
finer sole, so fat and firm; it really would be a pity if they did not
succeed in making the melted butter. When Agnes came back with the book,
Evelyn read out the directions, and was surprised how hard it was to
understand. In the end it was Agnes who explained it to her. The chicken
presented some difficulties. It was of an odd size, and Agnes was not
sure whether it would take half-an-hour or three-quarters to cook.
Evelyn studied the white bird, felt the cold, clammy flesh, and inclined
to forty minutes. Agnes thought that would be enough if she could get
her oven hot enough. She began by raking out the flues, and Evelyn had
to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her eyes fixed on the fire,
interested in the draught and the dissolution of every piece of coal in
the flame. It seemed to Evelyn that the fire was drawing beautifully,
and she appealed to Agnes, who only seemed fairly satisfied. It was
doing pretty well, but she had never liked that oven; one was never sure
of it. Margaret used to put a piece of paper over the chicken to prevent
it burning, but Agnes said there was no danger of it burning; the oven
never could get hot enough for that. But the oven, as Agnes had said,
was a tricky one, and when she took the chicken out to baste it, it
seemed a little scorched. So Evelyn insisted on a piece of paper. Agnes
said that it would delay the cooking of the chicken, and attributed the
scorching to the quantity of coal which Miss Innes would keep adding. If
she put any more on she would not be answerable that the chimney would
not catch fire. Every seven or eight minutes the chicken was taken out
to be basted. The bluey-whitey look of the flesh which Evelyn had
disliked had disappeared; the chicken was acquiring a rich brown colour
which she much admired, and if it had not been for Agnes, who told her
the dinner would be delayed till eight o'clock, she would have had the
chicken out every five minutes, so much did she enjoy pouring the rich,
bubbling juice over the plump back.
"Father! Father, dinner is ready! I've got a sole and a chicken. The
sole is a beauty; Agnes says she never saw a fresher one."
"And where did all these things come from?"
"I sent my coachman for them. Now sit down and let me help you. I cooked
the dinner myself." Feeling that Agnes's eye was upon her, she added,
"Agnes and I--I helped Agnes. We made the melted butter from the recipe
in the cookery-book next door. I do hope it is a success."
"I see you've got champagne, too."
"But I don't know how you're to get the bottle open, miss; we've no
champagne nippers."
After some conjecturing the wires were twisted off with a kitchen fork.
Evelyn kept her eyes on her father's plate, and begged to be allowed to
help him again, and she delighted in filling up his glass with wine; and
though she longed to ask him if he had been to hear her sing, she did
not allude to herself, but induced him to talk of his victories over
Father Gordon. This story of clerical jealousy and ignorance was
intensely interesting to the old man, and she humoured him to the top of
his bent.
"But it would all have come to nothing if it had not been for Monsignor
Mostyn."
She fetched him his pipe and tobacco. "And who is Monsignor Mostyn?" she
asked, dreading a long tale in which she could feel on interest at all.
She watched him filling his pipe, working the tobacco down with his
little finger nail. She thought she could see he was thinking of
something different, and to her great joy he said--
"Well, your Margaret is very good; better than I expected--I am speaking
of the singing; of course, as acting it was superb."
"Oh, father! do tell me? So you went after all? I sent you a box and a
stall, but you were in neither. In what part of the theatre were you?"
"In the upper boxes; I did not want to dress." She leaned across the
table with brightening eyes. "For a dramatic soprano you sing that light
music with extraordinary ease and fluency."
"Did I sing it as well as mother?"
"Oh, my dear, it was quite different. Your mother's art was in her
phrasing and in the ideal appearance she presented."
"And didn't I present an ideal appearance?"
"It's like this, Evelyn. The Margaret of Gounod and his librettist is
not a real person, but a sort of keepsake beauty who sings keepsake
music. I assume that you don't think much of the music; brought up as
you have been on the Old Masters, you couldn't. Well, the question is
whether parts designed in such an intention should be played in the like
intention, or if they should be made living creations of flesh and
blood, worked up by the power of the actress into something as near to
the Wagner ideal as possible. I admire your Margaret; it was a wonderful
performance, but--"
"But what, father?"
"It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunnhilde. I was very
sorry I couldn't get to London last night."
"You'd like my Elizabeth better. Margaret is the only part of the old
lot that I now sing. I daresay you're right. I'll limit myself for the
future to the Wagner repertoire."
"I think you'd do well. Your genius is essentially in dramatic
expression. 'Carmen,' for instance, is better as Galli Marié used to
play it than as you would play it. 'Carmen' is a conventional type--all
art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own
interpretation. But I hope you don't sing that horrid music."
"You don't like 'Carmen'?"
Mr. Innes shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"'Faust' is better than that. Gounod follows--at a distance, of
course--but he follows the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. 'Carmen' is
merely Gounod and Wagner. I hope you've not forgotten my teaching; as
I've always said, music ended with Beethoven and began again with
Wagner."
"Did you see Ulick Dean's article?"
"Yes, he wrote to me last night about your Elizabeth. He says there
never was anything heard like it on the stage."
"Did he say that? Show me the letter. What else did he say?"
"It was only a note. I destroyed it. He just said what I told you. But
he's a bit mad about that opera. He's been talking to me about it all
the winter, saying that the character had never been acted; apparently
it has been now. Though for my part I think Brunnhilde or Isolde would
suit you better."
The mention of Isolde caused them to avoid looking at each other, and
Evelyn asked her father to tell her about Ulick--how they became
acquainted and how much they saw of each other. But to tell her when he
made Ulick's acquaintance would be to allude to the time when Evelyn
left home. So his account of their friendship was cursory and
perfunctory, and he asked Evelyn suddenly if Ulick had shown her his
opera.
"Grania?"
"No, not 'Grania.' He has not finished 'Grania,' but 'Connla and the
Fairy Maiden.' Written," he added, "entirely on the old lines. Come into
the music-room and you shall see."
He took up the lamp; Evelyn called Agnes to get another. The lamps were
placed upon the harpsichord; she lighted some candles, and, just as in
old times, they lost themselves in dreams and visions. This time it was
in a faint Celtic haze; a vision of silver mist and distant mountain and
mere. It was on the heights of Uisnech that Connla heard the fairy
calling him to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king.
And King Cond, seeing his son about to be taken from him, summoned Coran
the priest and bade him chant his spells toward the spot whence the
fairy's voice was heard. The fairy could not resist the spell of the
priest, but she threw Connla an apple and for a whole month he ate
nothing but that. But as he ate, it grew again, and always kept whole.
And all the while there grew within him a mighty yearning and longing
after the maiden he had seen. And when the last day of the month of
waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king, his father, on the
Plain of Aromin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and
again she spoke to him--
"'Tis no lofty seat on which Connla sits among short-lived mortals
awaiting fearful death, but now the folk of life, the ever-living living
ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they
have learnt to know thee."
When Cond the king observed that since the maiden came Connla his son
spake to none that spake to him, then Cond of the hundred fights said to
him--
"Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"
"'Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing
seizes me for the maiden."
"The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing;
come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and
we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king."
King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and
the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun,
away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where
they went to.
"My dear father, manuscript, and at sight, words and music!"
"Come--begin."
"Give me the chord."
He looked at her in astonishment.
"Won't you give me the keynote?"
"In the key of E flat," he answered sternly.